conceptual

One of the basic problem of grounding  theory originates from an assumed fundamental asymmetry between the ultimate explanans and explananda of metaphysical explanation. While explananda can be composed of other facts in several ways, by disjunction, negation, conjunction, quantification, etc., the fundamental facts that constitute the explanans are supposed to be simple in themselves and total explanans can only be composed in of these simple facts in a straightforward aggregative way. In other words, while we need to find a metaphysical explanation to disjunctive, negative, quantified truth-bearers, etc., Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics resists the acceptance of fundamental negative, disjunctive or quantified facts. Thus, it faces the significant challenge of having to find adequate non-disjunctive grounds for disjunctive facts, positive grounds for negative facts, non-quantified grounds for quantified fact, non-modal grounds for modal facts, etc. So far, this task had proved elusiv...

Earlier this morning I had a chance to comment on Jeff Speak's talk “Merricks vs. the Russellian orthodoxy” at the Philosophical Aspects of Modality workshop  and you can watch the whole thing now at the following video: And here is the outline for my comments (the sections in blue are the ones we debated in the session): §1. Why think that propositions are structured? “Structured propositionalists have not always been as clear as they could have been, either about what the claim that propositions have constituents means, or about what, exactly, this claim is supposed to explain.”  So here is a probably partial list taken three recent papers: Gasiunas ( forthcoming ), Keller (2013) and Tillerman and Fowler (2012): Explain general content differences, for example between the proposition that Paris is a city and that Santa Monica is a city , or between the proposition that Ana loves Mary and that Mary loves Ana . According to proponents of the structured-...